Where Did My Waveforms Go?
 

Why did the waveforms on my timeline clips disappear? (I already have the "show all waveforms" icon checked on my track header so that isn't it). How can I get the waveforms back so I can edit the sound?

Make sure that the track is collapsed: "To expand or collapse a track: Click the triangle to the left of the track's name."

/Roger

The track is collapsed! All I get are two thin straight lines through the sound clip indicating there is no sound but when I play the clip the sound is fine.

What happened to the waveform squigglies?

Press Enter on your keyboard should do the trick.

/Roger

Won't pressing enter begin to render my video? Do I press enter by itself? Do I press enter with the track collapsed? Expanded?

Hugh,
The waveforms only display if the Time Zoom Level is zoomed in to the chosen value, or less. The default is 4 seconds. I'm guessing you "zoomed out" of the timeline which caused the waveforms to disappear.
Right-click on the Timeline Zoom Level (very bottom left corner of the Timeline Window) and select Timeline Window Options. See what the setting is for "Draw Audio when view is ___ seconds or closer." Be aware that changing it to a longer time may really slow down scrolling on the timeline. If it's at 4 seconds, just go back to the Timeline Zoom Window and change that to 4 seconds or less. The waveforms should come back.

Dan:

I'm not sure I know what you mean but I will just start punching buttons and adding values to see if I can get my waveforms back. Thank you for your help. I love this program and really want to master it.

Dan:

I did as you said. However, when I right click where you told me to, nothing happened. I got no timeline window options. What am I missing?

Dan,

What version of Premiere are you using? I just assembled an hour's worth of clips on a timeline in Premiere Pro 1.5, and I could see the audio waveform even when zoomed all the way out to show the entire hour. Also, I couldn't get anything by right clicking on the Timeline Zoom Level button, and there is nothing about Timeline Window Options in the Premiere Pro 1.5 help file that I could find.

Hugh,

When an audio track is expanded there is a button under it's speaker icon. This is the "Set Display Style" icon. Click it, and make sure "Show waveform" is checked.

You did not press Enter, thats what you are missing.

You must under some circumstances press Enter to render Audio Previews, and if you dont press Enter, no Audio Previews will be rendered and the Audio Track will have no waveforms.

Just click on the eyeball/s on your video tracks so no video can be seen during playback if you dont want to render any video. (recommended)

It does not matter whether the audio tracks are collapsed or not uncollapsed when pressing Enter.

And yes, you must press Enter yourself unless somebody else want to do it for you. ;)

/Roger :)

Well, my waveforms returned under mysterious circumstances. I don't know whether they just left to have a beer with their buddies or what. Things are back to normal. If I have any more issues I will sure to visit again, kind comrades.

Roger: Maybe I inadvertently pressed enter and got my waveforms back?